I think you are asking the wrong question. It would be like asking God to restore your crushed car after a tree fell on it.

If God healed even one amputee, no one would have to "live by faith" anymore. Even when Jesus did miracles in His day though, there were still unbelievers.

Anyhow, I think this is a more appropriate line of questioning - and I'd be interested to hear what the leading televangelists and especially the hard-core fundamentalists (Rodney Bell, the late Jerry Fawell, Bob Jones III, etc) would have to say.

For a background on this email, my wife, who just turned 54 in January 2012, had a stroke in June. Ever since then, she has just laid there, eyes open and that is it. No interaction at all. She never cheated people, smoked, did drugs, hurt people - unlike some I know that by my eyesight far more deserved a stroke or catastrophic illness more than she.

I know a lot of people are praying for [name] and would be disappointed or even angry if they found out I was not one of them. I am hard time praying for [name]'s recovery based on this:

It is easy to be a Christian and praise God when things are going great or even ok. Not so easy when you have been unemployed for three years and see better Christians (one is a Gideon) who have more talents, more skills, are smarter who have been unemployed longer. When I finally took a job at 54 years of age working at Wendy's for $7.25 an hour, 20 hours a week with no benefits, of course people thanking God had answered my prayers (their prayers) and provided me that job. I went and got that job.

Then maybe God did get me a job, the best job I ever had in my life in February. Though ok, I never ever thanked Him for it or gave Him credit for a lot of reasons. Then [name] had her stroke.

So a lot of people are praying for her. But not me. I look and I see so much going on in this world, every day there are murders and murders in Atlanta, absolutely senseless killings. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are sending home hundreds (thousands) of dead and forever maimed soldiers. Some certainly are Christians, some are not.

I am having trouble believing God will specifically answer prayers for [name]'s recovery because Muslims, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, Indians in India, people in "apostate" churches that really are not saved, 7th Day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses all pray for their loved ones to be healed. Obviously, some recover and some do not. Since all these people are praying to the "wrong" God, then supposedly those who recover, are not recovering because of God healing them?

Then there are faithful, Bible believing Christians praying for their loved ones. Some recover, some do not. When they do recover, it is always God who healed or restored them, never the doctors and the medical treatment. Of course, regardless of God, had proper medical treatment not been administered, I think we can safely say they would not have recovered.

I was "raised" in a very strict fundamentalist church after coming from an "apostate liberal Protestant church". Yet I have seen things in the fundamentalist churches that would surely turn God's stomach. A huge church here in Atlanta will encourage us to support missions that cost $3,000 per person to send someone 8 hours to London, then 8 hours to Bosnia for two weeks before making the 16 hour return trip. Yet when a lady in the church needed help who lived a distance away from the church, the first thing the "minister" said was "Brother she lives an hour away". I guess had she lived in Bosnia, it would have been no problem. Or the church asking asking asking for us to give give give to get the church out of debt due to offerings being down due to so many unemployed - yet calling a staff member up on the platform to give him a bonus check for his 20th anniversary of "service". Were we giving money to the church to get the church out of debt or give this staff person, who had a job, benefits, vacation, etc an unneeded bonus check, especially since the church was hurting so badly financially?

And when I look at missionaries constantly asking for money because they are $20,000 in debt, why isn't God answering those prayers, needs? After all, as the church continually asks for money, even if you are unemployed, sinking in debt, they keep telling you "God will meet all your needs". Of course, you have to "trust Him".

Lastly, I look and see people like Creflo Dollar, Richard Roberts, Joyce Myers, Paul and Jan Crouch, "Bishop Weeks", the list could go on for sometime, all making theirselves millionaires selling a gospel that says God will bless bless bless you.

Seems to me, good Christian, backslidden Christian, person of the wrong faith, ungodly people like Howard Stern, Bill Clinton, Hugh Hefner, again the list could go on for a long time, all have lives that are great. It just seems God blesses blesses blesses some and well, the rest of us, pooh on us. Yet we are constantly taught to believe Jesus loves me because the Bible tells us so.

If you have some answers, please share, especially in the light of God not answering prayers for so many others, yet people who are not so good Christians or of the wrong faith or just outright God haters like Hugh Hefner and Howard Stern, they seem to have it all.

Again, I apologize for the intrusion but if I dared send this to the church I used to attend, they would probably kick me out and ask me never to return. Which probably wouldn't affect me anyhow as I do not see myself ever going to any church again. I know, I know, I will still one day have to bow and declare Jesus is Lord of All. Just not likely again in this lifetime.

Thank you,

[name and contact information removed]

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Hi. Come join our forum and you can be free to talk openly about all of this religious stuff. You won't find a more delightful pack of heathen, devil-worshiping, baby-eating, spawns of satan anywhere else!

also, to add my two cents to the cionversation, there's a pretty simple answer for why some prayers are "answered" and some aren't, regardless of your depth of faith or even whether or not you have any to begin with... the answer: god doesn't answer prayers because he isn't there. now, i'm supposed to come up with some kind of proof for why god doesn't exist and back up my claim, but in all honesty, there are people here who are far more educated and better versed at that sort of thing, and frankly, i don't really feel that i need to defend my position. to me, it's common sense. god isn't real, that's why some shit happens and other shit doesn't.

if that doesn't cream your twinkie, try easing into the idea with this one: god (if he is there) just plain isn't listening. why should he? think of it... here we are, this random sceince experiment called life. take a rock and throw it in a petry [sp?] dish with water and put it under a lamp. life will grow. so here we are, this fungus, this bacterial growth, here we are developing this ego that says that there must be some kind of intelligent designer, and that furthermore, we, with all our rape and murder and bigotry, we are in it's favor. if i were god, i'd have turned my back on humanity a long time ago too. though i think fire would have worked better than a flood.

at 54, you've probably had a good long life of this christian propaganda shoved down your throat, so it might not be so easy to seperate from it. but i've found that the harder you shove something down someone's throat, the more likely they are to either swallow and love it, or regurgitate it entirely. you want my opinion? all that time you spend on your knees talking to the sky could be much better spent improving life for yourself. you don't need god to make things better.

Do you want the truth? There have been over 3800 different gods over history. I take it you don't believe in most of them or any of them but your own. See we are alike only we, atheists, just take it one god further. It's an easy step. You put your finger on it when you pointed out the hypocrisy of preachers getting richer and richer. It is all about power and money. Always has been.

I am so very very sorry for your position.Your wife was not ignored by your god, the same as those who appear blessed are not anything but apparently randomly lucky.

No mate . I empathise with your loss. I recognise the seeming injustice of her being rewarded for a good life in such a tragic way.I truly wish you the best possible outcome in your future, I can only imagine how destroyed I would be in your circumstances.

The one small advantage I would have would be the knowledge that this is not god's work. There is no god, and the insane injustice, illogic and carelessness is made understandable with that truth.

We live without gods in a cold and totally uncaring universe. Only our lives and shared love give any meaning to it.

I cannot offer any heavens celestial rest home, there is none. But the cares and pains and concerns of this random world stop dead.

I wish I could offer a softer grander "the universe loves you" illusion, that illusion is what this world's multitudinous religions are based upon.It is illusion.

I offer you long distance humanist empathy, as one monkey observing the pain of another and wishing I had magical powers to "make it all better" for you.

But I won't lie to you.

Please join this forum, we don't need another potential de-convert. Your beliefs are your own, and no doubt, they'd be extremely rigorously examined here, but it sounds as though you might just need us.

The greatest sensorial aspect of becoming aware that gods are a human invention, is the clarity, and the instant awareness that all the convoluted twisted double-thinking necessary for "god" to make sense, is just dropped.

This won't help you with the tragedy of your wife's state, but it will remove the illusory cause of resentment that is gutting you at the moment.

There is no doubt in my mind there is a God. Just a God I do not comprehend. I was raised in a "liberal, apostate Protestant" church, then got involved in the extreme fundamentalist movement in my 19 - 26 years old. Moved on to being conservative, still believing. Still believing these past few years even though the college I attended from 2007 - 2012, it seemed they were intent on "proving" evolution which would then "prove" there is no Creator.

Sorry, but there is way too much evidence there is a Creator. Maybe He did not create the Earth in a literal seven days, maybe the Earth is much older than 6,000 years - but if the Bible is "true" and He created a "Man", this "Man" was not the form of a new born baby but a form that even though a few seconds "old" would have the appearance of being (in our measurement) 19 - 20 years old.

But just because there is a Creator, doesn't mean to me anymore He is as caring and loving as He declares Himself to be. Just look at what He did to Job. We are taught He knows everything from the beginning of time until the end of time. So He knew what Job's response would be. Yet He allowed Satan to abuse Job (who He loved) to prove a point that did not need proving. I don't think any rational human being would allow someone they "loved" to be abused by their enemy just to prove that person would still love them. I just want to rip the book Job out of the Bible.

Anyhow, my initial question and "reasoning" currently is that people of all faiths pray for their loved ones to recover. Some recover, some do not. According to the fundamentalist theology, God only answers the prayers of Christians. If that is correct, then the ones of the "incorrect" faiths recovered not because God "healed" them. And for the ones of the "correct" faith who did recover, they would not have recovered regardless of "answered prayers" if they had not received proper and timely medical treatment. If you are bleeding profusely and don't bandage your wound, all the prayers in the world are not going to prevent you from bleeding to death.

Finally, I have had "answered prayer" in the last few months. I was asking God why He blinded Paul which brought about Paul's conversion and yet did not blind others which would have resulted in their conversion. Seemed pretty unfair to me that Paul got a "huge red light" and thus became a Christian and others who could / would have became Christians if they had only had the same "huge red light" did not get such. God "told" me three things. 1. He did not have to answer me. 2. However He would. 3. He knew Paul would remain faithful despite horrible persecutions, stonings, whippings, beatings etc. Someone else that would have received the "huge red light" would have quit later, so that is why God "chose" Paul and not the others.

You will never convince me there is no God. Clearly there is. What I am having issue with is His personal involvement in the lives of Christians. Ok, I have not led a "good" Christian life - done many things that were deliberate violations of good Christian conduct. But I have seen good solid Christians have troubles troubles troubles. Where is their "life abundant"? Then as I said, there are some "Christian" leaders who use the Bible to enrich theirselves. Making millions and lavishly spending it on theirselves while others go without. And God seems to turn a blind eye.

So many questions, sure wish there were some real answers.

In closing, we will all one day bow and declare "Jesus is Lord of all". We can do it here on this Earth "voluntarily" or we can wait until Judgment Day and do it "involuntarily". Right now, I am in the group that will be doing it on Judgment Day. How can I love a God that could step in and doesn't?

In closing, we will all one day bow and declare "Jesus is Lord of all". We can do it here on this Earth "voluntarily" or we can wait until Judgment Day and do it "involuntarily". Right now, I am in the group that will be doing it on Judgment Day. How can I love a God that could step in and doesn't?

There was a very interesting thread recently about whether we could or would have the choice of bowing. But what I am more interested in is why you still believe that we will someday bow to Jesus. How do you find it possible to believe in the Jesus portrayed in the Bible, yet not accept that he is as good as he says? I mean....if you don't believe that the biblical Jesus is all he says he is, then what reason do you have to believe that he actually exists at all? Is it not possible that (while there may be a god), the Bible is completely wrong and there was no Christ at all? I just can't fathom how its possible to believe that the god of a particular holy book exists, but NOT believe that the holy book gives an accurate picture of that god!

The book that explains is best for me is "Gleanings from Genesis" by Arthur Pink.

The Earth is too intricate to not have a Creator, not to mention the Universe. There is no way life "evolved" and became increasingly complex to the levels it is today. No more than the bldgs in our major cities just rose without having creators.

As for being "told", it was not audible nor a dream, it was just thoughts(?) that were impressed into my mind, thinking. I am confident it was "God" answering those questions.

All I saying is, I still believe the Bible, I just don't understand it. Just as I believe when I cross a huge bridge in my car, I believe that bridge is going to support my car though I do not understand it. Or the complexities of a jet aircraft or the television and even though I am a computer technician, the fine details of how this laptop works. I "trust" all these devices and yet can not explain how they work. (Off subject - some day I would like to see the creation of a fax machine from start of an idea on paper to the finished product sitting on the shelf in a store. Think about how complex a fax machine is. It literally blows my mind).

Years ago a message was on the passage in the Bible where it says "The fool has said in his heart, there is no God". The speaker said that Man says there is no God so he can avoid accountability. I think there is a lot of truth to that.

But the debate (for me) is not whether or not there is a God or if the Bible is true; the debate is "Why doesn't God heal amputees?" That is the wrong question. We (again, I do not understand) are supposed to "live by faith". If God healed ONE amputee, there would be no need to "live" by faith". It is as unrealistic to ask this question as to ask why He doesn't undo a crushed car or restore a collasped building. The question is (I repeat) since all faiths pray for recovery of their loved ones, the ones that recover of the "incorrect" faiths are not recovering because God intervened, so why do the faith healers always credit God for healing those who recover of the "correct" faith? If they are so confident God "heals", then why give them any medical treatment at all?

Many people are praying for my wife, many people have prayed for countless others. Some will recover, some will not. Everyday the newspapers are filled with obituaries of people who died younger than 50. Answered prayer for healing from God is not consistent. Why does He choose some and not others? Especially when some of the others who live long healthy lives are outright liars, thieves, all while being in church every Sunday morning, all spiffed up and looking mighty "Christian". I personally have met some of these people. One person who "stole" another man's wife (twice! long long UNBELIEVABLE story you would think I made up . . . ) actually told me I should forgive him just like Jesus did for stealing the other man's wife. LOL. Let me wrong you and when you get angry, tell you "Brother, even though I stole from you (a large amount, over $20,000), you need to forgive me and move on". What about the part that says I should make right my wrong, THEN ask your forgiveness. Based on his reasoning, if I robbed a bank, the jury and judge should forgive me since Jesus has.

This is getting off topic. God exists. The Bible is true, I don't understand it, I am angry at a God that COULD recover my wife and doesn't, angry at a God that lets people like the several rich televangelists become millionaires. Since He COULD give them health or other issues (I am not asking for a bolt of lightening from the sky) but doesn't, they just prosper prosper prosper, it has confused me. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so . . . . easy words, not so easy to believe any more. As I told my children, love is an ACTION word. If I say I love you but don't provide for you when I CAN, then my actions demonstrate a contradiction.

There is one answer that immediately answers all the questions with no further input necessary.

There is no god.

So any question you may raise about your imaginary god's ridiculously ambiguous and inexplicable nature is answered.

Any other belief system is you indulging in your feelings.

And truthfully dadmsjr, you are at the wrong forum to be making unsubstantiated claims about god. This is an atheist forum.

I respect the love you have for your wife.I feel for your loss.I understand that you have feelings about your god that arise from the seemingly random nature of his blessings.I feel sorry that you are so incapable of even glimpsing reality, that you are doomed to be asking inevitably futile questions.

Your god does not work in mysterious ways.

Your god is an artificial creation from the minds of bronze age and you have been conditioned into unquestioning belief.

Why does your god consistently act like everything an omnibenevolent god shouldn't be?Because there is no god.

« Last Edit: August 29, 2012, 05:37:44 AM by kin hell »

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"...but on a lighter note, demons were driven from a pig today in Gloucester." Bill Bailey

I did not come here to offend the atheist. Or try to change their minds. I have not "shared" my faith for years. I only said to try to support there is no God based on "Why God does not heal amputees?" is not sound reasoning based on the reasons I have already stated.

If you are open to it, at least read Pink's "Gleanings from Genesis". That "book" (Genesis) is too well written to be a fable or an elaborate work of fiction. And though you and others ask hard questions about other parts of the Bible, ones I can not answer and sometimes ask my self, it is true. Things are progressing just as the Old Testament prophets and John in the Book of the Revelation said they would. There is an eternity for us once we die. Unfortunately for me, it is not going to be "heaven" for me - at least right now. Though I certainly want to avoid an eternity in Hell, but not for the "right" reason - because I want to spend eternity with the Lord. No more than I pay taxes for the "right reason" - I don't pay taxes to support our government - I pay them to avoid the consequences of not paying them. Off topic.

Again, my being here was not to convert anyone from being an atheist nor to become one myself.

David, If you are right, and jesus does exist, Don't you care enough about our fate to explain our error so we can escape the eternal pits of hell? Doesn't god "command" that you witness to all those who seek him? I seek him, but must use my wits to make sure I have the right god with the right instructions. So does not your beliefs mean that you must share with us to keep from being punished by god for disobedience in the same way as Jonah?

Kind of hard to "witness" for God I am angry at. I wish I could back up, back up, back up and undo some of the deliberate choices I did that have put animosity between God and I. They often say in church when God seems like a "million miles away", it wasn't God who moved. . . .

And years ago, I did study how the Word of God came to be. I read books on both sides - ones that supported that it is truth and ones that supported that it was totally man-made.

Jesus is quoted (in the Bible of course) that not one jot or tittle will pass away. It would be wrong(?) of God for there not to be an accurate dependable Word of God for us to have and then to hold us accountable in Eternity for not following His "Word".

When I was in the Navy, there were several conflicting "faiths" on our ship. Everyone said everyone else was wrong and they were right. So I read the ENTIRE Bible on my own (except for Daniel). Started with the Book of Acts (which gave the history of how the early church formed) and then the rest of the New Testament. I then read the Old Testament (which reading the New Testament had prepared me for). After I finished, I can now say why I BELIEVE this or that. I just don't understand some things so much as I thought I did before.

Some of what I "don't understand" has nothing to do with God or religion or Christianity - just the randomness and unfairness of life. I was unemployed three years - three LONG years. During which I saw employed people lose GOOD jobs due to stealing from their employers. One is so ridicuously funny - 8 people on the loading dock at a electronics retailer came up with a plan to give their friends large screen televisions by getting their friends to buy a smaller item, then when they picked up the smaller item, they would throw in a large screen tv. They had stolen about 80 tvs before they got caught. What IDIOTS. I could see maybe 3 or 4 or even 10 tvs. But 80? Did they not think someone somewhere was going to notice such a huge discrepancy in the inventory? All 8 got fired. I immediately went and applied - after all there were now 8 openings . . . LOL Sadly, I didn't even get a call . . . . . Where I work (and evidently this is in a lot of places these days) people retire with nice generous benefit the NEXT day (or week) are back at work in the SAME job, now collecting the retirement and then the SAME or increased pay. Yet we have people who have no job or jobs that pay wages so low with so few hours and NO benefits. Like HELLO, let the retired person get out of the way and let an unemployed or underemployed person have that job.

Anyhow, that is off subject.

The intricacies of this Earth's existence is proof enough for me there is a Creator. No way it "just happened by chance".

But then by me stating this in an atheist forum will bring people saying I am here to convert the atheist. No, I am here to say AGAIN, the logic since God doesn't heal amputees, there either is no God that is real or He then doesn't heal at all is unrealistic. God exists. He is just hard (for me) to comprehend right now unless I just close my eyes and say like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, "I believe, I believe, I believe".

The Earth is too intricate to not have a Creator, not to mention the Universe. There is no way life "evolved" and became increasingly complex to the levels it is today. No more than the bldgs in our major cities just rose without having creators.

Unfortunately, that doesn't answer either of my questions. Saying "there is no way life evolved" is not an answer - which particular part of evolutionary theory have you examined and found to be incorrect?You also did not answer why - even if there HAD been a creator - it automatically makes your god the one true god. Unless...

That "book" (Genesis) is too well written to be a fable or an elaborate work of fiction.

Too well written? Detailing a god who offer animals as a helpmeet and bosom companion before deciding to create a female? That skips over all of the "how"? That is cobled together from at least two sets of writings, that describe different polytheistic gods? That draws heavily from earlier Mesopatamian mythology? Does Pink's book cover all of these questions, or does it rather prefer to ignore them and instead try to show how the second-hand fables it contains MUST be true?

The answer, of course, is that it does none of that. It is a book designed for the believer, for sunday sermons. It says nothing about the origins of the Bible, and instead starts from the assumption that it is true, and simply muses on the story it has to tell. So I'm sorry, but it hardly does a credible job of supporting your particular chosen creation myth.

These are hard questions, dadamsjr, and thankfully there are real answers, though you may not find them immediately comforting.

You are frustrated with the Christian concept of god[1] because the reality of non-discriminatory suffering on this planet is not compatible with the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and all loving creator[2]. Humanity is the constant victim of not only its own psychopathic cruelty, but the indifferent cruelties of nature as well. We are plagued by a myriad number of diseases, our coasts are ravaged by devastating tsunamis, and the innocent are just as likely to suffer calamity as the wicked, yet your religions dogma would have us believe that this is all part of a benevolent deities divine plan for his beloved creation. This is called the problem of evil, and it has driven many former adherents of faith to find refuge in the logical consistency of atheism.

What happened to your wife is terrible, and i can't imagine the magnitude of the grief you must be experiencing at this time. I'm helpless to do anything but offer my most sincerest condolences, to let you know that as a fellow human being i empathize with your suffering in some small way. Because the truth of it is, life is unfair. And it's not unfair because some deity loaded the dice against us, it's unfair because the universe that we inhabit is utterly indifferent to the human condition. Once you take "God" out of the picture, things begin to make sense. We don't fall ill because "God" in his wisdom and grace ordained it, it is because in this world we coexist with billions of pestilential parasites, viruses, and bacteria, and the longer we live the greater our chances of contracting some debilitating condition. Individual prosper or meet misfortune in disproportion to their conduct or merit not because sociopathic Yahweh has a nasty gambling problem, but because life is not intrinsically just and shit happens, constantly.

In fact, if the god of the bible did exist, he himself should be put on trial for his numerous transgressions against humanity. He commits mass murder and insists upon genital mutilation in Genesis[3], in Joshua he demands genocide[4], he accepts children sacrifice without a word in Judges[5]. The new testament is no better as far as human sacrifice is concerned. What an utterly barbaric projection of human cruelty.

The complexities, grandeur, and tragedy of reality are much better explained, not to mention rationalized, from a godless perspective. Evolution is the foundation for all our recent advances in modern medicine and agriculture. The evidence for the theory is overwhelming. Religion and morality are simply human abstractions that have assisted in maintaining civilization and the survival of the species. Now that science has come along and has begun to slowly unravel the universes mysteries, the human construct of religion has lost its purpose, and a good chunk of its influence. Even the question of origins , once religions firmest stronghold, is beginning to truly be illuminated for the first time thanks to empiricism and the scientific method. Lawrence Krauss wrote a book titled A Universe from Nothing, where he argues that due to the peculiar working of quantum mechanics the universe may have sprung from nothing. Whether or not his theory is the theory, it's a hell of a better explanation than the allegorical gibberish genesis has to offer.

In the end, i greatly admire your honesty and courage in sharing your story here, dadamsjr; and I'm only spewing all this atheistic rhetoric your way because i believe you would be rid of much unnecessary anguish and mental frustration if only you would discard this vacuous mythology and fully embrace reality for what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. But if all you need now is safe place to vent, and some sympathetic shoulders to lean on, i completely understand. Again, i am so very sorry to hear of your wife's condition, and I hope you find a half way decent job. God knows its hard to find work in this economy, if you'll pardon the expression. I sincerely wish all the best to you and yours.

It is my opinion that whoever wrote the book of Job alluded to this, but belief in Yahweh was nearly inescapable in that culture at that place in time so the best the author could do was chalk suffering up to god being a total dick.

Sounds to me like you are a deist - basically someone who believes there is a creator, but that creator does not get involved with it's creation on a personal level. Does that sound accurate?

If so, you are in good company with the likes of some of the founding fathers of the U.S., for example.

I myself, being a strong atheist, could only imagine that if there is a creator of the universe, then this creator cannot possibly be YHWH, god of the Bible. Too much cruelty in the world to believe that a loving god is running the show.

Anyway, glad to see you on the boards. Take your time, get to know some of the regular members, and join in on the interesting, and sometimes heated discussions.

A very basic question; do you understand people lie, exaggerate, and hallucinate?

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

Some people take the point of Job to be that people should trust yhwh and be loyal to him no matte what. I think there are two other points that make more sense.

The first is that you cannot trust yhwh. In the story, yhwh and the jews had a deal which is often referred to as the Old Covenant. They were to worship yhwh and only yhwh, make the proper sacrifices to him and abide by his rules, and in return yhwh would make them propserous and protect them. That was the deal. The first verse of Job says Job upheld his end of the bargain: "This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil."[1]

And yhwh broke the covenant because a satan dared him to. He withdrew his protection and allowed all manner of suffering to befall Job. And in the end, he demanded Job's servility anyway and got it through bullying and threats. This is not a kind god or a loving god or a god you can count on. So in that light, Job is a cautionary tale, a warning that it is best to not make a deal with yhwh.

The other plausible point is one that addresses theodicy. Theodicy questions the existence of god due to the obvious presence of suffering. To paraphrase, "why do bad things happen to good people?" The bible attempts to answer this in several ways. 1. you are being punished by yhwh for your sins2. your sinful actions cause suffering for others3. sometimes suffering has a positive benefit4. Job.

Job essentially punts on the question. It says "you don't get any explanation, so STFU and quit complaining." People see nature as cruel and random and try to make sense out of it. They often look to religion to do that. But in Job, it says yhwh is as capricious and random as nature. It says, there is no answer. It says, god is an enigma.

That is not clear to me. Moreover, even when I believed in god, it was not clear to me. Everyone kept telling me there was, and to have faith and to look for signs. And I did. But I never saw god. It was always a struggle for me.

You should not write off possible answers to your question without exploring them. You might ask, what would a universe look like with an all powerful god? What would it look like without one? What do we see in the universe now?

The intricacies of this Earth's existence is proof enough for me there is a Creator. No way it "just happened by chance".

I'm sorry David, but a watchmaker is not needed for those intricacies...

You ask those here, who are opened minded enough, to give some time to Arthur Pink's book ...OK, I'll go look for it now, but in the meantime I ask you to take 10 minutes to watch the video I've included >with an open mind<. It is incontrovertible evidence that complexity can arise from simplicity and time over enough iterations.Please consider (I mean really think) just what that means when the strongest feelings you state as proof of your god is your awareness how complex the universe is.

Regarding open mindedness.

Atheists here will say, give us evidence and we'll look at it, and if it stands up to scrutiny, then of course we'll have to change our position.Theists unfortunately consistently and repeatedly just ignore any evidence that threatens their "god-security-blanket" no matter how obvious and incontrovertible the evidence is.

You are describing exactly that theist deliberate blindness when you write.

I think you are asking the wrong question. It would be like asking God to restore your crushed car after a tree fell on it.

The car crushing I'm not too sure about; a leg or an arm is a little more personal. Catholics particularly constantly go on about people being "miraculously cured"; look at the shrine at Lourdes and similar places.

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If God healed even one amputee, no one would have to "live by faith" anymore. Even when Jesus did miracles in His day though, there were still unbelievers.

It may seem that if God really did cure these people at these places of pilgrimage, then faith would not be required, but in fact, it is the faith in believing that it was God who cured them that keeps them going.

The odd healed amputee (overnight and in a locked room) would do wonders for church attendance. But it has never happened and never will.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

yeah, good point GB. To get back to the question of wwgha, let me just post my boilerplate reply. You (dada) seem to have misunderstood the point of the question:

There is a certian type of xian who attempts to justify his or her god beliefs by claiming that people are miraculously healed of various afflictions by divine intervention. The afflictions may include cancer, diabetes, coma, heart conditions, tooth decay, halitosis, spastic colon, etc. We frequently hear anecdotes about how some church group prayed for some guy and the next day he was completely healed.

But there are several problems with this kind of reasoning. First, data shows many of these types of afflictions sometimes "clear up" without any kind of prayers. It seems to be a natural response or a misdiagnosis. Second, people of all religions make the same claims. And last, there is a whole class of ailments that are never, ever cured by prayer or naturally.

People never regrow lost limbs. Lost eyes never regrow in the empty sockets. Retarded people never gain normal mental capacity. Alzheimers and Dementia sufferers never recover. Old people never rejuvenate.

This has clear implications about a god that supposedly heals people. It leaves you only a few conclusions about such a god.

But then by me stating this in an atheist forum will bring people saying I am here to convert the atheist.

I think that you, David, might actually be the one seeking conversion, but you may not know it yet. Every question you have asked and every problem you are finding with your faith indicates that you have started on the path to atheism. Your OP is exactly the type of thing I would have written had I discovered this site back when I first started on this path myself.

One of the following statements is true concerning a god/creator as reconciled to the realities within this world:

1. He exists and created everything, but does not intervene or is not concerned with the trappings of human life. We are merely one infinitesimally small part of his enormous universal creation and undeserving of any special consideration.

2. He exists and does directly intervene in our lives and world, but does so in such a random, haphazard fashion that it is impossible to determine that he does anything at all, or indeed if he even exists. In causing and/or allowing such vast and indiscriminate suffering to occur, he is either horribly cruel or utterly indifferent to the human condition, of which neither option could be considered good or worthy of worship.

3. He does not exist.

If you really think it through, its got to be one of these three options.

I understand how difficult it is to abandon a belief that has been such an integral part of you for your whole life, so perhaps option 1. above is the way you are leaning. Just know that a universe under a 'hands off' type of god would be indistinguishable from one with no god. As strange as it may seem to you now, I[1] find option 3. the most comforting, and certainly the most likely. It takes away all the excuses and illogical BS that you must accept on faith as a believer.

I suspect that you have already known this for quite a while, but are just not quite ready to go 'full atheist' yet. You are certainly farther along than I was when I first began to question the core of my faith.

I wish you and your family the best of luck, but I won't be praying for you.

dadamsjr: I'm firmly convinced that there's far more to the universe than any religious creation story can ever hope to explain. To be honest, I view those stories as similar to "what shapes do clouds make"? People tried to make sense of the world and how it came about, so they imagined how things might have happened based on their experiences and imaginations. It is little different than when a person looks at clouds and uses their experiences and imagination to come up with what the cloud looks like. The only difference is that we can see the clouds change over time, whereas Earth, and the universe for that matter, change far more slowly.

To a person caught in an earthquake, it must have been terrifying, like a mighty being was shaking the earth in rage. Without knowing about plate tectonics and fault lines, how could they ever expect to come up with the real answer as to why the ground sometimes shook and cracked? It's not as if anyone could feel the Earth moving except when there was an earthquake, even though it was (and is) moving all the time. Ancient peoples were ignorant, but generally not stupid. Stupid people would not have even attempted to explain why things like earthquakes happened.

People tried to explain things in the only way that made sense - that someone was causing these events to happen, the same way a bed doesn't shake unless someone shakes it. They had no way to tell otherwise. It's only been within the past few hundred years that we've developed methods and technology that let us find out the real reasons why these things happened. We still wouldn't have gotten there if people hadn't started going against the teachings of the dominant religions and philosophies in order to really find out why things happened.

The thing you should consider is that if a religion's creation story can be wrong, what else could be?

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Nullus In Verba, aka "Take nobody's word for it!" If you can't show it, then you don't know it.

I don't think anyone here can "prove" that the planet Neptune exists - though we all probably believe it exist based on someone somewhere telling us there is a telescope somewhere that someone we have never eve met looked through and saw it.

Same thing with a lot of what we believe. I have never been to Mount Vernon, yet I believe a man named George Washington existed. I don't think there is one person here who can even name the person who did a portrait of George Washington. Yet we believe without "proof" when we are taught in history he existed. Going back further in time there are other historical figures we believe existed because that is what we have been taught. (I am not saying there is no "proof" that George Washington existed - I am saying we accept it as fact without demanding that "proof"). Just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa - I have never seen it and with today's Photoshoppingchoppingcropping, any "picture of just about anything could be an entire fake creation . . . .

Maybe not a sound argument for the existence of a Creator, just saying with the ability of Hollywood today to put out movies that seem actually real life, who knows what is true and what is a lie. Remember the movie "Capricorn One"? And there are some who deny that the United States ever really went to the moon.

I don't care if you do not believe in God. I don't care if you think creation could come about by chance instead of a Creator. I know in my heart and confused mind there is a God. Just having a difficult time how He blesses blesses blesses some and well others, pooh on them . . . . .

Same thing with a lot of what we believe. I have never been to Mount Vernon, yet I believe a man named George Washington existed. I don't think there is one person here who can even name the person who did a portrait of George Washington. Yet we believe without "proof" when we are taught in history he existed. Going back further in time there are other historical figures we believe existed because that is what we have been taught. (I am not saying there is no "proof" that George Washington existed - I am saying we accept it as fact without demanding that "proof"). Just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa - I have never seen it and with today's Photoshoppingchoppingcropping, any "picture of just about anything could be an entire fake creation . . . .

The George Washington Argument again?

This is a tired old argument,

I've seen the death mask of Washington

I've seen painting done from life.

I've seen the house that he had built.

I've seen documents in his handwriting

I've read documents from his enemies, those neutral to him, and those that admired him. They agree on most facts, even if their interpretations on them vary

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.